Why does nobody play Mario Kart 8 without items?

Mario Kart is a series that's been plagued with randomness for a while now and the newest iteration is no exception. It's about 40% skill and 60% luck and it's all because of the rigged item system. Now there are options in Mario Kart 8 that allows you to set the items off or to shells only, but it is impossible to find anybody when using those parameters.

What's the deal? I want my input to actually matter and to not be robbed for no good reason. The mechanics in this game are fantastic. All I want it a fair race.

All they need is a "turn off the goddamned blue shell" option.

honestly that would be wonderful to have a no items playlist.

smash has it (for glory)....mario kart should have done it.

Mario Kart 8 has it, but it's empty. You won't find anybody there. It's in the Tournament section.

I prefer the game with items. Otherwise, it would just be an arcade racer. The items add an element of the unknown to the race, which significantly adds to the challenge if you are the best player.

Is there a mode in Mario Kart 8 that lets you race with items turned off?

You can't say its 60% luck if its still Rigged.... Anyway... Since its Riggid you can learn the nuances of each power up and Exploit the system. Basicly it means The Ideal Position is 3rd place... 2nd place if you're in The Final Lap. You won't get Blue Shelled but unfortunately you'l still have to fend off everyone behind you. Take the Lead halfway through the last lap and you should be Fine.

yes...but no one plays it. it seems :P

I saw someone with over 25K VR. Honestly, if you were *actually* skilled at the game, you wouldn't have problems with the items.

Those VR points don't exactly speak to skill. You can finish in the top 50-60% in a race and still get an increase to that number. VR speaks more to how often you play the game than how skilled you are at it. At least to my knowledge.

No, it scales. Once your VR is high, you have to place very high to still get a positive rating. At least that's how it was in the Wii version. I haven't gotten a high enough VR score in 8 to know for sure.

Can you play without items outside of a tournament ? Because I Wonder out it would turn out ... you need to get combination that will lead to the fastest kart if you wish to win because you can't count on a red shell at the right time to steal the victory

I'm assuming VR stands for Victory Rating/Ratio :p

The VR scales. If you have high VR and lose to people with low VR, you will lose a lot more points than if you did if you lost to people with high VR. Likewise for when you win, so if you beat people with high VR you get more points than if you beat someone with low VR.

So in other words, this 25k+ VR guy would've lost points if he came 2nd to a bunch of people with around 6k VR, and would've only gained 1 point if he came first (or something like this anyway).

So VR speaks about how often you play when you first start playing Mario Kart 8, but over time it should flatten out to your actual skill level.

Mario Kart without items would be incredibly boring, just like the For Glory mode in Super Smash Bros.

I don't get why anyone would want to play those games without items, that's what makes it fun.

Some people like the battle field to be as even as possible and for skill to be the only deciding factor for victory. Success feels so much better when you know it was legitimately gained. If I won because the first place person got hit by a blue shell just before finishing, it would feel like a hollow victory. Likewise, If I were the person hit by the shell, I would feel robbed of my efforts from the entire race.

In smash, the same thing can happen. Great items can just randomly appear closer to certain players, giving them an edge they never worked for.

Items can be fun, but the novelty of them can only remain fun if you play the game in short bursts. Lasting appeal comes from your play time actually building towards something. The more you play a game, the better you get. Items allow for the chance that your efforts do not mean as much.

@trugs26 That's fascinating. I have no idea how one can get that good at Mario Kart given that the items are designed to stop people from winning.

@Pikminmaniac: I don't see how you say the items are rigged to stop you from winning. The only item that does that is the blue shell, and if you are good at the game, then getting hit by a blue shell on the rare occasion is pops up, which is like once every couple races, won't really mess you up too bad. All of the items in the game are easily countered by a banana or a green shell. I've been in rooms where the same person finishes first 30 times in a row. I've been that guy before. There are some times where the luck prevails, but in my personal experience, it barely happens if you are good enough.

Because that's like much a slower version of Fzero is my guess.

I find that when I'm in first place in a multiplayer match and I'm just relying on skill, that no one can touch me outside of a blue shell or a lightning bolt. Even then I'm still in first place. If you run a race well enough there isn't much others can do to you.

Because its boring that way, Mario Kart the whole premise is built around using items, its half the fun. Without it, its only half fun.

Isn't there rubberbanding in MK8? Or is that just for the bots? Anyway, as other people have said, if you're good, chances are very high that you'll win, items or no items. If rubberbanding is present, removal of items doesn't really make the game fair either..

Mario Kart is about throwing a blue or red shell at the most epic moment to steal the first place. I lost races just as much I won races with some epic use of items and this is why it is fun. I also never feel bad when I bumb someone or use an item that destroy everyone just I accept that all the other will do it to me too.

And being in first place is risky but it makes the race just as fun unlike being stock in a lesser place where everyone will throw red shell at you so you loose all places.

i thought about this....

you dont need to take out the items....(just the blue shell)

just lower the racer count.....12 people in a race is too much bullshit.

it should be 8 imo.....it will dramatically cut down the crap in this game.

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oh and here is a cool mk 2player match...

Sure an element of the unknown is good and all, but if it's the third lap and I'm 2nd place, and all of a sudden a red shell hits the banana protecting me from behind, then another red shell, a lucky green shell bouncing of the side, some bastard with a star power-up and a motherfucking bullet, all flipping me over and not letting me even accelerate, I finish 10th when I was 2nd the whole 3 laps, then I get kinda annoyed not gonna lie.

Mario Kart has never been about being the best racer. The items are what make the game. The game isn't fair and it's not supposed to be. Mario Kart is more about having fun in all the chaos, not winning a fair race.

@Toxic-Seahorse: Yeah i know... I still love it :p

Because we know it's not a true racer sim. We like sitting around a table playing Russian roulette and just having fun knowing we might get lucky at a key moment in the game, or in contrast we might get a win taken right out from under us at the last second.

Those are the stakes and we like that brand of racing in Mario Kart.

@Toxic-Seahorse

I't would help if they had more abstract avenues of determining a winner.

I think we can all agree that simply coming in 1st place in a game like this is not good enough, there shood be more than one way to be victorious... With an Abtract Point system you can award points to things like opponents hit, stunts performed, etc. Then use the position placement as a Sort of points modifier/multiplyer.

Hell you can even up the ante and allow teams.

@Pikminmaniac: You touched the main reason I don't buy Mario Kart games anymore. I own MK1-7 and I realized that besides not like the racing genre, I don't like the luck aspect of playing it. Looking back, Mario Kart has never been a go-to game for fun in my household due especially to the luck factor. I'm a skill oriented person. I prefer Chess to cards, etc.

On the flip side, if you remove the items...it becomes a typical racing game (of which there are probably better racing games) and I despise racing games. The only thing I like about Mario Kart was that it was a bit more than a typical racer.

Doesn't that only hold true if the others are a great deal worse than you?